ARC: The Gift of the Quoxxel

Note: I received a free galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

King Norr of Nibb was not content. He longed to know of the world beyond his tiny, island kingdom. Why travel elsewhere, said his people. What place could possibly be more perfect than Nibb? What frustrated Norr even more, outsiders never came to Nibb. Foreign ships approached, hesitated, then sailed away. Why was that?

And that wasn’t the only mystery. Who was the little girl who sang, but would not speak? What kind of monster lurked in waters along the shore? Had Dr Hinkus been devoured by woolly drumbkins? And most importantly, what’s for lunch? Drearily perfect Nibb was about to turn upside down. As King Norr often said, it’s enough to give one “haddocks.”

(Summary via Amazon)

For this week’s Mini Review, I’m going with bullet points. First, the good stuff:

This story has some very funny moments. There are some hilarious characters, and some truly absurd things happen to them. I found myself laughing out loud on a few occasions.

The king and queen were my favorite characters. The king, because he is so oblivious. The queen, because she is not. They work together so well and produce many of the previously mentioned funny moments.

Now, the not-so-good stuff:

Every character is quirky–there’s no way to anchor myself in what “normal” is for this world.

The vocabulary has tons of made-up words. Just a personal pet peeve, but I hate this.

The story itself felt incomplete. I wasn’t sure where the story was going, and I felt the ending was kind of abrupt.

So there you have it! I was baffled by this book, honestly. It was well-written, amusing, and whimsical, but I had no idea where the story was going or what the world and characters were supposed to be like. Pick it up if you like quirky, out-of-left-field characters and vocabulary.